A modalmetric fibre sensor, or modal domain sensor, is based on measuring a change in the speckle pattern output of a multimode (MM) fibre. When coherent light is injected into a standard MM fibre, a large number of modes are excited which will propagate down the fibre. At the output of the fibre, the interference of the modes produces a pattern known as a speckle pattern. Any disturbance to the fibre which can cause a change in any one of the phase, polarisation and distribution of the modes, will cause the speckle pattern to change. By measuring this change, a physical perturbation to the fibre such as a vibration or strain can be detected. The modalmetric sensor is therefore a multi-beam interferometer encapsulated within one fibre, where each beam can be represented by one of the propagating modes.
The detection of a perturbation using the modalmetric effect usually involves detecting a change in the speckle pattern by sampling or interrogating only part of the overall speckle pattern. This can be done through the use of a physical restricting means where only part of the speckle pattern is detected, or through the use of a CCD detector to electronically sample the required area or speckle pattern sub-zone. This is because a negligible change in intensity of power is detected if the whole speckle pattern is being analysed during a perturbation to the MM fibre.